


retrospective

by Anemoi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, Liverpool F.C.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4003924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It didn't hurt like he's been winded, it hurts like he had no lungs."</p>
            </blockquote>





	retrospective

**Author's Note:**

> _"There is no single moment of loss, there is  
>  an amassing." _  
> \- Stacie Cassarino, “Snowshoe to Otter Creek” 
> 
> i feel like i should apologize, because it's way too self indulgent. But i had to write it.

 

 

 

There's never just one goodbye. If Steven had anticipated this, he didn't know if he could have gone through with it. Now it's the second to last, and last, but really it's not even _third_ to last, and he's saying goodbye to the home crowd. He's clapping for the Kop, swallowing back knives in his throat.

Rewind, and he's touching the sign for the last time. He thinks it should feel different, somehow, he thinks there should be something, but there wasn't. The heavens don't open up and there's no bolt of thunder lamenting the occasion. The sky's so blue it hurt to look at. His hand meets the glass of the sign with a quiet tap, _This is Anfield,_ and he passes under it, and that was all.

Then they're two goals down and he thinks, _There is no room in this sport for sentiment._ They're getting hammered by Crystal Palace and the pundits must be having a field day.

Rewind, because while there's no room in football for sentiment there's time enough for happiness, and he has Adam in his arms and he thinks the lad might be choking up, (“Adam Lallana, good player, hasn't scored in any premier league games in 2015-”) and everyone's piling on to them but Steven keeps his eyes open, because he wants to see this, all this, forever. They're singing his song, they're singing his song, and everything blurs in to _Steven Gerrard is our captain, Steven Gerrard is a red-_

And he's smiling because it was still true.

 

-

 

Things go from bad to worse and they end up losing 6-1 to Stoke city on the last day of the season.

It didn't hurt like he's been winded, it hurts like he had no lungs, like breathing's a foreign concept. He slides down against the wall after the match and thinks, so weary he just wants to be home with Alex already, crawl in to bed and maybe sleep for a month. The only thought was _it's over, it's over,_ and he knows it's over because he was glad of it.

There's no room for sentiment in this sport, but did it have to be this _cruel_?

 

-

 

 A month later and Carra's driving him to the airport even though his flight's at 7 am and they have to get there at 5. Steven’s scratchy eyed with sleep, nursing a coffee, and they make conversation because Steven doesn’t want him to fall asleep at the wheel. His throat’s dry and they talk in little fits and starts, the quiet of the empty road slowly growing in to morning traffic, snatches of birdsong when he opens the window to chuck his empty cup in to a passing garbage can. 

Carra’s brusque while unloading his luggage; Steven only has a carry on bag because Alex and the girls have gone on ahead with mostly everything. He hands it over to Steven, Steven rolling his eyes a little and smiling. 

   “I’ll see you around, mate.” Steven says. He holds his arms out for a hug. Carra stares at him for a bit, and Steven feels briefly afraid, because he never expected Carra’s goodbye to be a bad one. He doesn't think he has anything left in him to bear it.

Carra steps in and claps him hard on the back, Steven winces and smiles in to his shoulder, holding on for a little more time than usual.

“Don’t you dare cry on me Gerrard.” Carra says, muffled. Steven starts laughing, shoves him away but grips his shoulder, and he says, “Look after my city for me, yeah?” 

 “Go on.” Carra says instead, hands shoved in his pockets. “Get out of here.” So Steven nods and drags his suitcase up the path and in to the sliding doors, and he doesn’t look back. 

 

-

 

  There’s an hour to kill before his flight, and before he knows it Steven’s pulled out his phone and started dialing a number. It rings for way too long, and he sighs, knows there was a fifty-fifty chance of it being picked up anyway- and theres a click as the call goes through just as he was about to put down his hand. Xabi says, sleepy and hoarse, “Stevie?”

  “Hey Xabi.” He says, “I’m about to board the flight.”

  “Ah.” Xabi says. There’s some ruffling sounds like he was settling down in his covers. “You’ve made it.”

  Steven laughs.

 

 

Steven tears apart the croissant in to small bits, not actually eating any of it. “Congratulations on the title.” He says.

Xabi yawns and makes an appreciative noise. It's been like that for a while, them talking about the weather. A new movie. Liverpool. Jon's new braces, Lourdes' football kit obsession. Liverpool. Xabi winning the title in his first season with Bayern. Why food in airports taste terrible. Liverpool. Steven feels like he should apologize, but maybe Liverpool's like training wheels for them, like if they start talking about anything they'd get back in to the groove of things, relearn how to be with each other again.

“Do you think they’ll remember?” Steven says. He means _remember me,_ but he doesn't say that part out loud.

Xabi chuckles, but it’s fond. “Do you think they can forget?”

That draws a laugh out of him, although a reluctant one. He knows what the truth is, because heroes are easily forgotten, and legends are placed carefully between the pages of history books and put on the shelves, and the dust will settle against glass cabinets and the dust will settle on trophies. There is no way to stop the march of time, the slowing tick of his heart in his chest. He thinks, if someone were to offer him a chance for ten more years, what _wouldn't_ he trade in return?

  Xabi asks, “When are you boarding?” 

  “Soon.” He says, looking at his watch. “I should let you go back to bed shouldn’t I?” 

  Xabi says, “No no.” Then stifles another yawn. Steven smiles to himself, feeling like his heart would crack in two with all the love he felt. 

  “I think we did alright.” He says softly, looking at the horizon starting to lighten up, rose and orange and violet colored in the distance. The pale sunlight’s getting reflected off the planes’ wings, throws shadow and light on the tarmac and there’s conductors in neon orange waving little flags about. It reminds him a little bit of the quiet before the start of a match. 

  “More than alright.” Xabi corrects. He laughs. “You changed the world, Stevie.”

  “Was it enough?” Steven says, abrupt.

  Xabi’s quiet then because he has nothing to offer, and Steven should have known. There are no certainties when the world is ending except that it is, and facts are not something you can change just by sheer force of will.

  “Steven.” He says finally, and it is enough.

 

 

 

-

 

So here is the last step of the goodbye. Steven settles in to his seat, and there's no one else on his row, which he was grateful for. The plane hums around him, the engines start, and they're moving out, slowly.

He's thinking, _could I have ended it any other way?_

   But it’s a gradually dawning thing, this realization, that there’s no right way to end things. And if there is no right way to end things, maybe it will hurt less to think of the start. He wants that first match again, ten more years, _we go again._

  But the start was too nebulous for him to catch on to. He can't hold it in his mind, because you can't think of starts in the retrospective, because the whole point of starts is not knowing. Endings are knowing, but endings are never happy.

   No end, no start. So what does he have left? Only the things in between, the things he can count on his fingers- Xabi's stubble under his fingers, running out on to the pitch at Anfield and the sunlight blinding his eyes for a brief moment, the early morning radio channel as he drives to Melwood for practice, the sun warming up the steering wheel under his hands-

There is this, and this, and this. The color is red. The name is _Liverpool._ It's not a good story- he knows that now, his life doesn't make a good story. Life is too messy and stories have deceptive endings where it seems like things end happily, but in actual fact things don't _end_. He doesn't win the FA cup on his birthday and bow out with a trophy. He doesn't win his last three matches, even. They fucked up his swan song so bad it's an actual new record- _Liverpool hasn't conceded 5 goals before halftime since 1976._

That's okay, he thinks. He's smiling a little. There's more to it than endings and beginnings. He thinks about middles, as the plane angles, gravity pressing him back in to the seat. Things don't end- they carry on, and next season they'll heal and knit themselves back together, and they will be beautiful and Liverpool again. Hope is a bad habit but he can't help giving in. The captain's voice comes on, brisk and professional, to read the time and temperature in Los Angeles, and the light glints off the silvery metal on the wing of the plane.

He's going, he's going, he's gone. There's time to think of this, one last thing. Right now someone in a red shirt is kicking a ball in to an open goal, and the thought makes him shiver. Someone is raising their hands in the air like the word impossible has no meaning, and the crowd is singing, _Walk on- walk on-_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fun story, I tripped today and messed up my ankle and cried to two strange men who were confused and upset for me, but really i wasn't crying about my scraped off skin, i was crying about football. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and come find me for a hug on [ tumblr ](http://www.mesutings.tumblr.com)


End file.
